


When it Rains....

by tobinlaughing



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Movie)
Genre: Coffee, Gen, Give me a break, Relationship Issues, Sexytimes, bad day, lack of coffee, we need to talk, you have to be kidding me
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-02-24
Updated: 2013-05-07
Packaged: 2017-12-03 11:17:48
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 11
Words: 18,307
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/697680
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tobinlaughing/pseuds/tobinlaughing
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The circumstances of her last assignment being what they were, Agent Romanov is being forced to take it easy for a few days. It's unclear as to how many of the occupants of Avengers Tower will survive her staycation.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

Natasha had never noticed how ridiculously uncomfortable the chairs in Sitwell's office were. She was noticing it now: her lower back was cramping, and her overtaxed quadriceps had set up a hot tingling--the result of sitting in this flat-bottomed, zero-lumbar-support torture device that was way too short for her. Not for the first time, Nat shifted, trying in vain to get comfortable. Agent Hill noticed her movement and quirked an eyebrow; no matter how difficult, long, or dangerous the mission had been, Romanov was consistently calm, cool, and still during debrief. Barton noticed it too, and in noticing their noticing, Sitwell noticed that his debrief had ended seven minutes ago when everyone's attention span had died. 

"Alright, well," Sitwell shuffled his papers, "it looks like we're done here. Agents Barton and Romanov, as always, on behalf of SHIELD and Director Fury we commend you on a job well done. Based on your report and action, we are declaring this mission successfully completed; however--" and here hie looked at Natasha, stern lecture in every line of his face. "As per your report, Agent Romanov, I am ordering you to report to medical for evaluation for any lasting effect from your exposure to the chemical agents you mentioned. I know you believe that you're unaffected," he said, holding up a hand and forestalling her protests, "but there is absolutely no need to take any unneccessary risks. Agent Barton, your final assignment on this mission is to make sure that Agent Romanov makes it to Medical and receives a complete check-up."

Clint was tired; Natasha could hear his shoulder-joints grinding as he shifted in his seat, and his voice was dry as he replied, "Yes, sir." They stood in tandem--well, Nat practically leapt out of her chair to cease the pins-and-needles in her back and legs--and other joints and vertebrae popped audibly.

Half an hour later she was wrapped in a paper gown and pacing an exam room (and seriously, were they not SHIELD, the most fully-funded and highest-tech organization the western world? why, then, did she have to try to cover her ass with a grossly inadequate paper gown instead of something a little bit more innovative?) while Barton leaned against the door jamb, making an heroic effort at not falling asleep on his feet. They were awaiting her blood-test results.

"Barton. Barton. CLINT." Nat barked, and Barton shook himself awake. His hearing aids needed a charge, she knew, or he'd have been as wired and on-edge as she was. As the hearing aids' batteries faded, the sounds they picked up got softer and softer, and Clint had less and less to keep him awake, especially now that they'd each been awake for about fifty-six hours, eaten the equivalent of maybe a bowl of cereal apiece in that time, and had a really long-ass boring debriefing about their long and hasty flight out of Brazil.

"Barton. Go see Darcy. Go get cleaned up and get some rest. I'll be fine here."

"Really?" He grated at her, smiling through his bloodshot eyes. "You'll be fine? You haven't slept in five days and you can't sit for more than ten seconds. You've eaten your nails down to the quick and you're still trying to scratch your skin off. How and when are you going be ok?"

"Look, jack--"

"Agents," the doctor breezed in, making Natasha's acidic response unneccesary. "Agent Barton, I will take it from here, thank you. I've sent orders to Assignments and Scheduling that the pair of you be left out of rotation for the next week, so I suggest that you get started on catching up on sleep." Barton sketched the both of them a weary solute and slouched out of the room.

"As for you, Agent Romanov," the doctor continued, "you were exposed to a few less-than-friendly chemical agents. It's important that we keep your heart rate and adrenaline levels down over the next week, until these chemicals are fully expelled from your system. To that effect, I am ordering you to rest for the week, and avoid stimulants."

It was a mark of Nat's weariness that the implications of those orders took a moment to sink in. "Wait--what do you mean, 'avoid stimulants'? And what kind of rest are we talking about?"

"We're talking about the kind of rest where you leave the SHIELD barracks and stay in your place at Stark Tower, you avoid the gym and training center, you leave your gun in its locker, and you concentrate on things like breathing, staying calm, and sleeping. And as for the stimulants, you are not to consume anything stronger than green tea for one week. That means no coffee, less than two ounces of chocolate per day, no soda and less than half of a cigarette per day, if you smoke."

"I don't smoke. No coffee?"

"No coffee."

"I don't want to stay at the Tower. Stark is at the Tower and I can't stand Stark. And--"

"And you will deal with it, Romanov. Any significant rise in your heart rate, blood pressure, or adrenalin levels will result in exacerbation of your condition and an extension of your down time, but that down time will be spent in a hospital bed in this facility. Go to the Tower. Eat. Get some sleep, and try to relax."

He may as well have handed her an handbasket and pointed her the way to Hell.

 

The common room was empty when Natasha lugged her duffel bag through, but she could hear AC/DC playing from one of the workrooms down the hall and tried to hurry through to the suite of rooms kept aside here for her use. She could hear someone making their way towards the common room and suddenly had a deep urge to not have any face-to-face time with any of her fellow Avengers. She was almost through to the corridor beyond the common kitchen, when--

"Agent Romanov?" 

Calm down, Natasha told herself, taking a deep breath. Keep the heartrate down. She schooled her features into pleasantness before turning around to face Captain Rogers. 

"Good morning, Captain."

A tremor seemed to pass over the Captain's face before he said, "Afternoon, actually, ma'am. Will you be staying here tonight?"

"For the next couple days. Doctor's orders."

"Rough mission, eh? Well, if you're up for it, we're playing ping-pong down the hall if you want in. I know Agent Barton and Miss Lewis will be joining us when they've finished...napping." And the Captain actually waggled his eyebrows at her.

Nat suddenly realized she was an inch away from biting the Captain's head off and swallowed her annoyance. "Thanks, Cap, but I'm going to get settled in and turn in early. I appreciate the invite." She turned to go.

"Well, sure. uh, Breakfast. See you at breakfast, ma'am. Sleep tight."

Nat nodded at him, and left the room.

She slept late into the next morning, awakened by a slow throb in the back of her head. Caffeine withdrawal, she groaned inwardly. Nat dragged herself out of bed and into the shower. Feeling a bit more human, she dared to open her door. Maybe there'll be some fresh green tea, she snarked to herself. Hooray, tea. Instead she found a covered tray with a post-it note stuck to it, sitting just outside her door. According to the note, the Captain had been cooking breakfast for everyone and saved her some. Nat started to recognize a separate bad feeling alongside her caffeine headache. ..but hey, breakfast was breakfast.

Cap poked his head in just as she was finishing up. 

"Good morning, ma'am." Sweet Christ, she hated being called 'ma'am'. Made her feel about eighty years old. "Sleep well? How'd you like breakfast?"

"Yes, thank you, Captain. Very kind of you to think of me."

"Not at all. Have you seen the gym yet? Stark's got a whole floor --"

"Doctor's orders, Cap. I have to rest this week. No gym, no training for me."

"Well, hows about a coffee later? I know this great place--"

"No stimulants, either." Nat tried to put on her compassionate "I know you're trying to flirt but it's not working, so please take the hint and stop trying before we both have to commit seppukku to escape this increasingly awkward situation" face, but her left eyelid had started twitching (another symptom of caffeine withdrawal) and that made it hard to make anti-puppy eyes at anyone. "Look, Cap, thanks for the offer, but I'm still pretty wiped, so I'm going to head back to bed."

"...Oh. Sure! Well, sweet dreams, ma'am." 

Nat gritted her teeth.

Two days passed with Natasha dodging rolling caffeine headaches and what she came to think of as her rolling brown-outs, periods of time when she felt a driving need to take a nap. She also spent her free hours dodging Cap, who seemed bent on getting her alone and talking. Since New York and the invasion, she'd known that Steve Rogers had his eye on her, and given what she'd read of his involvement with the redheads in the SSR from his dossier, she couldn't really act surprised. Red-headed action-loving women were his downfall, apparently, but Nat was completely uninterested in being another notch on the Captain's belt. She was laying out her fifth or sixth game of Solitaire, systematically running through every cheat she knew, when Barton and Lewis finally emerged from their suite. Nat could practically see cartoon hearts, stars, and canaries wafting through the doorway after them and she gritted her teeth again, feeling one of her mandible muscles getting sore with unaccustomed overuse. 

"Nat! How you doin'?" Barton flashed her a rakish grin and slid into the seat beside her, the wind of his movements ruffling the cards she'd already laid down. Natasha resettled them with extreme care, using the little time to push down her annoyance. She had to remind herself that Barton hadn't done anything to provoke her--yet--and that if she was going to tear his head off, she'd need to wait until he gave her a reason.

Darcy started making coffee, and that was almost reason enough. The smell--the smell! Natasha looked balefully at her barely touched glass of iced green tea. She'd tried adding lemon and honey to it, but that didn't make it any more than hot water with dirt-smell. When Darcy brought a mug of steaming, hot, rich, deep-dark-smelling coffee over for Barton, and then set it down carelessly on the table while they started making out in the chair right next to her--

Nat jumped up, not caring that she bumped into Clint's back and jostled the hormonal couple, breaking up their latest makeout session. "I'm going for a walk," she announced , not caring that Darcy and Clint probably wouldn't care. "I'll be back later." She quickly retrieved her shoes and a jacket from her rooms, then hurried out the door, taking a left to avoid the corridor that led to the gym (where she knew Cap had gone that morning). She needed to get out and do something, almost anything. A walk was going to be almost unsatisfying because she would have to go slow, but she needed out of the tower after two days. She took the stairs down the first four flights of stairs, shuffling carelessly down the risers until a sudden wave of nausea washed over her and she had to grip the handrail. Her heart was pounding--big mistake. She took a couple slow, deep breaths, waiting for her heart to slow; she took the next door onto the floor, deciding to take the elevator.

The elevator dinged open and Nat was surprised to see Dr Banner leaning against one wall, a water bottle under one arm, glasses on his nose, reading the paper. He glanced up as the doors opened, then did a double-take to see her. 

"Miss Romanov," he greeted her, his voice mellow, but a look on his face of clear trepidation. "Heard you were back in the Tower for a while. How are you feeling?"

"Oh, I've had better vacations," Nat smiled in spite of herself. "You're looking well, Bruce. How are things?"

"A little...crowded up in the lab. Thought I'd grab some breathing room." He gestured to the otherwise-empty elevator. "Care to join me?"

Belatedly Natasha realized that she hadn't gotten into the elevator, and stepped in, leaning against the opposite corner. Bruce smiled at her. "Dr Foster and Tony are arguing over allotment of resources in the lab. Jane thinks Tony's taking up more than his share of shelf space in the lab's non-bio fridge."

"Sounds...horrible."

"Oh no. 'Horrible' happened when Thor decided he needed in on the conversation. Apparently Miss Lewis has gotten him hooked on the cupcakes from the bakery down the block, and he didn't see why he couldn't have lab-fridge-shelf-space too."

"I can see why you decided to get some air."

"How about you?" Bruce peered over the tops of his glasses at her, studying her face. Nat caught herself thinking that it was a rather cute look, then stopped herself. Big green rage monster, right.

"I can't do anything!" She burst out. "I can't go run, I can't go train, and I can't have coffee. I can't go down to the range, and I can't seem to lose Cap or Stark when I want to. Then Barton and Darcy are all over each other, all the time, and their sex-smell smells like coffee..." Nat ran a hand through her hair, then realized how much she'd blurted out. She sighed. "I need out. I just need to...just go out."

"So you figured out Steve's little crush, huh?" Bruce smiled. "He's been nursing that one for a while. I hope you let him down easy."

"Constant avoidance counts as letting down easy, right?" 

"Sure." Bruce folded his paper. "SHIELD medical alerted me to your conditions and restrictions when you got here, asked me to keep an eye on you. Don't get mad," he warned when she would have protested. "You were exposed to some pretty radical stuff, and I know--I mean, I've heard--how you and Barton especially like to go for broke on your missions, consequences be damned. You're a valuable agent and they wanted to make sure you followed doctor's orders on this. I guess they figured if you decided to disregard their warnings, I could just tap the Other Guy to hold you down on the bed til, til you fell asleep." Banner stammered that last bit, blushing as he did so.

The Other Guy, huh? It occurred to Nat that if anyone was going to be holding her down on a bed, Bruce Banner was probably the person she'd prefer the most, although she'd have to be careful fighting back. She had the idea that the Hulk would be pretty lousy at foreplay.

"Hey, should we pick a floor?" Nat asked, and they both chuckled nervously when they realized that the elevator door was standing open. Selecting the ground floor, Nat stepped a little closer to Bruce when the doors closed. When they reopened on the ground floor, Nat stepped out, fumbling for an adequate farewell. To her surprise, Bruce stepped out with her.

"Talking about Thor's cupcakes, now I want one," he explained with a shy grin. "Mind if I walk with you?"

"Not at all, doc. I hear its safer to walk these mean streets in pairs and if we get mugged--well, muggers're in for a suprise."

"From me or from you?"

"Both. I can't fight back or my heartrate will skyrocket, so once you're done getting green you can set me up on some rooftop and chase the bad boys. I'll hang onto your clothes for you."

"Or I could conveniently shred them again, and get stuck being naked inte city. Once was enough of that for me, thanks."

"I don't know if I saw a whole lot of that last time," Nat glanced at him sidelong. "I will have to keep an eye out for that event."

They both laughed a little nervously.

By the time they returned to the Tower (a dozen cupcakes in tow) Nat had managed to wrangle Dr Banner into staying for dinner in the common room, despite the fact that that meant he'd have to try to survive Barton's cooking. If he falls deathly ill, Nat thought, he's free to recouperate in my room. That thought surprised her as much as a half-dozen other little thoughts had that afternoon, but Nat wasn't worried, overall. Her confinement might be a little less unbearable if she could keep Dr Banner around for the duration....must work on that, she told herself, with a little satisfied grin.


	2. Chapter 2

Dinner was...fine. Barton, who usually ended up breaking a lot of things in a normal kitchen, manned the grill that lived out on the common room balcony while Darcy chopped, sliced, garnished, and pretty much assembled the meal in the kitchen. (And when had "assemble" become a joke? Everything in Stark Tower needed some kind of "assembly" and Tony hadn't skimped on letting people know that. While he'd stopped before getting refrigerator magnets printed, he'd taken to marking the title blocks on his design schematics with "some assembly required". There were pressed-tin street signs at all the stairwell entrances: "Emergency assembly point". Leftovers in the refrigerator somehow generated post-it notes with Tony's scrambled-egg cursive on them: "assemble with care". For someone who was a forward-thinking mechanical genius, Natasha grumped privately, the guy sure can't let go of a gag.) Pepper joined them, managing to avoid getting stains on her just-out-of-the-office power suit by eating everything--burger, fries, pickles, watermelon--with a fork. Natasha was glad to see her; she and Pepper had always understood each other and gotten along well, even after her "Natalie Rushman" front had been dismantled, at least within the confines of Stark Industries. She and Darcy seemed to be going a little out of their way to make sure Nat felt comfortable there; Darcy, for the interruption to Nat's "quiet time" earlier that day, and Pepper because that was the kind of person Pepper was. 

The awkward seemed to fountain up between Banner and Rogers whenever conversation lagged and the latter noticed that Nat was sitting between the former and Darcy, with Clint and Pepper on the opposite side of the table. Steve had come in late from his training session in the gymnasium and been the last to get a seat, so the placement could have been coincidental, but every look he shot at her or Banner was a little sad and a little more accusatory. (I guess 'constant avoidance' doesn't really fall into the 'letting down easy' category after all, Nat sighed inwardly). 

What was not easy was the next morning: everyone awake at more or less the same time and assembled (dammit, Tony) in the common room, when a series of multi-sourced beeps filled the air. Smartphones were taken in hand, and the team all looked at one another.

Then they all looked at Nat. 

She was not in the habit of avoiding lines of thought; once in her brain, something could either be classified as 'useful' or 'not useful' and filed away as such. 'Useful' trains of thought were explored and compartmentalized; 'not useful' were scanned and then discarded as distractions. Try as she might, she'd not been able to classify "what happens if the Initiative is called while I'm on my forced rest?" as a "not useful' train of thought, and so she'd believed herself prepared for this--but her gut dropped, and her heart started to beat a little faster in spite of itself. 

"Nat--" the hand Barton laid on her shoulder was both conciliatory and restraining. "We've gotta go."

She'd thought about this. She was prepared. "I'll head over to the CIC--"

"No." Banner shook his head. "You are not to participate in this engagement, Agent Romanov. Not in the field--" he raised his voice over her protests, "--not in the field, not from the CIC, not from the cockpit, not at all. You are off rotation for this week, and if you want it to _only_ be this week, you will stay here and keep yourself calm."

"Keep myself--? Are you even listening to yourself?" Nat exclaimed. She could almost see all the good feeling she'd built up about Banner leaking out of her ears. "Who are you to tell me what I can and cannot do?"

"I'm the one SHIELD gave your file to," he answered, still managing to not meet her eyes. "You have your orders, same as I do, and they all came from Fury. You wanna take it up with him, fine, but if that's the case I'm tranqing you before we go."

"I can't just sit here while there are other agents--"

"Nat, come on--"

"No!" She batted Barton's hand off her shoulder, glaring at him. "There's no reason I can't be in the CIC for this. I can help you, Barton, and you know it."

"Agent Romanov," Steve moved into view, "please. You're right, you're a valuable member of this team, and we all want to keep you that way. Please, you have your orders, same as we do. Please don't make us worry about you when we've got a mission waiting."

She glared at him, and then Barton, and finally Banner. For the first time that morning, Banner met her gaze, and to her surprise, she could see that smoldering anger coiling under his calm surface. _You wanna know my secret, agent Romanov? You wanna know how I stay so calm?_

She jumped when a throat cleared, right behind her, and their staring contest was over. "I'm sure we could use your help in the lab," Darcy offered. "Jane's got me ID'ing anomalies in the particle array scans. You handy with a highlighter?"

Nat hated retreats, but this, at least, could be a gracious one. "Yeah, sure. I can help you and Dr Foster." As she breathed out again, her heartbeat slowed, and the room swam briefly, forcing her to concede to the wisdom of their arguments. She closed her eyes for a second, and when she opened them again, Banner nodded at her. He didn't smile, but neither was he angry--at least, not with her. 

At that, the team broke, scrambling to finish coffee, smoothies, and bacon before rushing out to rooms and to the equipment lockers. Nat fought the urge to force her Widow Bites on Clint; he'd worn them once, and managed to shock himself in the process of trying to charge an arrowhead. As the elevator doors closed, she realized that she didn't even know where they were off to, or what the emergency was.

Darcy appeared at her elbow again, with a tumbler of iced lemonade. Nat took a drink and almost choked; the thing was half-full of completely unexpected vodka. Glancing sidelong at Clint's girlfriend, she saw Darcy smile and hoist her own glass, from which she could smell rum and coke emanating. "Misery loves company," Darcy said, by way of explanation. "It helps the worry if you're a little sauced when they leave. Seems to make the mission go a little faster, from this end, anyway." Nat suddenly realized who she was talking to: Barton's girlfriend, who never went along on missions, who had undertaken only a handful of SHIELD assignments and had been deemed unsuitable for the rough fieldwork her lover disappeared into for days, weeks, months at a time. Of course misery loved company: Darcy would be almost intimate with the gnawing worry, the grating silence, the lack of ability to do anything at all while her friends and teammates were out in harm's way, protecting everyone else--including them--while almost certainly failing spectacularly to protect themselves. 

Nat suddenly felt guilty for accompanying her partner on so many missions, and not giving a second thought to Darcy, left so often at home. Had the lovebirds not worked this out before, they wouldn't still be together: obviously some understanding had been reached in their relationship, and Darcy was able to separate and compartmentalize her work here, and Clint's work, out there, and function just fine. 

Nat sipped her drink again, then knocked it back as Darcy did the same. "This isn't going to hurt what we're doing with Dr Foster, is it?"

"Nah. Balances it out, actually. Jane's so wired all the time that if we're a bit slow this morning, it'll drag her back to human speed and I might be able to convince her to actually eat something besides Pop-Tarts. She'll be in the same boat," Darcy added, casually, "her man's off swinging hammer at the bad guys, too." Nat was about to protest--she wasn't upset about a man, she was upset about being left out--when she noticed the twinkle in Darcy's eye. Of course Darcy had noticed her and Banner's porcelain-fine flirtations at dinner. _Love is for children_ \--yes, but attraction was a natural human condition. It occurred to Nat that if Banner didn't return to help her explore that attraction, she'd be more than a little upset. 

She helped Darcy assemble (god _dammit_ , Tony!) a tray of toast, tea, and various other healthier-than-pop-tart foods for Jane, and they headed up to the lab to work and try not to worry.


	3. Chapter 3

Hill and Sitwell came to see Nat that afternoon, and found her methodically highlighting lines of numbers as she, Dr Foster and Darcy passed pages back and forth to each other around the lab. Jane had her identifying values outside of a narrow frequency range while Darcy, more accustomed to the work, isolated values within two narrower ranges. Darcy had both herself and Nat working on steadily emptying fifths of flavored vodka: Darcy was nearly a third down, mixing her pomegranate vodka with orange juice, while Nat, not wanting to make mistakes in her paperwork, was a glass or two behind her in decimating the orange vodka with lemonade. 

Hill "ahem"'d quietly and eyed the bottle. Nat looked up at her, past worry for her teammates and well into "not giving a shit" territory, and smiled a trifle wearily. 

"What can I do for you, Agent Hill?" she asked, as pleasantly as possible, capping her highlighter with utmost care lest she snap it in two, leap over the desk, and club Maria Hill about the head and shoulders with the open vodka bottle until she gave them an update on the current mission.

Hill nodded to the bottle. "Enjoying your vacation, Agent Romanov?"

"Not in the least, particularly today. Do you have a sit/rep for me, or did you come down for a liquid lunch?"

Hill stiffened. "We came to make sure you were still here."

Nat cocked an eyebrow. "Both of you?" she asked dryly. "Sitwell I can understand, but --why aren't you on the helicarrier with Fury?"

"No helicarrier on this one, just the Quinjet. And _Director_ Fury is more than capable of handling any mission without help."

"Where are they?" Darcy asked from across the lab, and the two agents turned to see Jane and Darcy staring from Darcy's lab desk. Sitwell was standing, somewhat awkwardly, in the doorway still, as though afraid to get in amongst the four headstrong women, lest his masculinity ignite some sort of estrogen powder keg and blow up the lab. 

"As always, Ms. Lewis, you will be debriefed on the mission after the team has returned and has gone through _their_ debriefing," Hill answered.

"Well, seems to me part of the team is still here," Jane nodded to Natasha, "and shouldn't she be allowed to know where and how her comrades are doing?" Nat flinched inwardly at Jane's use of _comrade_ \--but she probably always would, she reflected, and she was sure the Doctor hadn't done it on purpose. 

"That is not my task today," Hill replied in a neutral voice. "My task today is to make sure Agent Romanov is following doctor's orders and keeping clear of the mission in progress. As long as she isn't using any of the equipment in the lab to try and track the other members of the Initiative or intervene in any of their actions, I will be on my way."

"Stark's firewalls get you?" Nat asked, pouring herself another measure of spiked lemonade. Vodka, she mused, was nice, especially since it played so well with other things. This American vogue of adding flavors to their drink didn't bother her much, especially on afternoons like this, but she would never stop missing the peppery, oily taste of the home-brewed liquor. The real stuff that could strip paint and clean shoes, and was perfect for serving at grandma's funeral: it tasted like strength, and sorrow, and the back-breaking survival instinct of the Stalingrad slums. 

"Excuse me?"

"You turned my comms off this week," Nat tapped her ear, indicating the inner-ear implants that connected her to SHIELD's communications network, "but you can still track them on the satellite network. I know Tony's scrambled and firewalled this place six ways to Sunday, but I thought he might let SHIELD get through once in a while. Guess not."

"Natasha, I wonder if you should be drinking this much when the doctor has ordered--"

"Alcohol is a depressant, not a stimulant, and you know very well that it takes more than a bit of girly juice to get me drunk, _Maria_ " Nat interrupted. Deputy Director Maria Hill might be, but Nat had been on SHIELD's payroll for a lot longer than this woman had been in service, and refused to let her talk down to her. "I haven't had a goddamn cup of coffee or anything more than a brisk walk all week, so drop the mother hen act. You got me stuck in the Tower, all right? I'm not going anywhere." She raised her voice a little. "And if you think you need to tranq me, Sitwell, I'd like to see you get that dart gun out of your holster before Darcy tazes you. One or the other of us will take you down, and I won't have to break a sweat to do it."

Hill looked flabbergasted and Sitwell dropped his hand away from his belt sheepishly. 

"I think you're done here," Jane snapped, glaring at the two agents in the doorway. "The three of us have work to get done, and you've seen for yourself that Natasha is sitting right here. The only things I want to hear from you are either Thor's and everyone else's locations and sit/rep, or a polite "good-bye"."

Sitwell had already bowed himself out of the room, but Hill planted her hands on her hips and glared at the three of them. "We're here on Fury's orders, to make sure that Romanov is following hers. This agent has a history of taking matters into her own hands--"

"No, you're here to be mean," Jane bites back, startling Natasha and Hill further. "You know as well as anyone that Natasha has lain low all week and that she's practically chewing her own head off at not being able to be out with the rest of the Initiative. I haven't got time or the patience to deal with you or your bullshit orders right now. You tell _Director_ Fury that if he wants to send people to barge into my lab, the next time he can damn well do it himself, and I'll give him a piece of my mind _directly_."

Hill sketched her a snappy and ironic salute, then all but stormed out of the lab as Jane snatched a sheaf of papers from the printer. The doctor marched them over to the lab table where Nat was working and slapped them down on to the table in front of her. "And don't go thanking me," Jane smoldered at her, pointing her pen at the tip of Nat's nose. "You and Banner, Barton and Rogers are the only SHIELD agents I'll tolerate in my lab, and none of you have very much rope to hang yourselves with at that. You're being useful, but if jack-booted thugs like _her_ are going to come tramping in here, disrupting what we're doing, what _I'm_ trying to do, while you're here, you can take yourself elsewhere, too. I have exactly no time for any of this bullshit."

Darcy shot her a glance under lowered lashes: _Just nod and look contrite, if you know what's good for you._ Natasha did just that, not daring to meet Jane's eyes. Dr Foster's temper was a little infamous around the Tower, but Nat had assumed that Tony Stark's constant one-upmanship and inability to focus on one project at a time was usually responsible. Evidently Dr Foster still wasn't over the business in New Mexico, and despite her well-appointed surroundings, she still carried more than a little resentment that she was dependent upon SHIELD and Stark to advance her research. 

"I think I'll go order us some lunch," Natasha said hesitantly, shuffling her highlighted papers into a neater pile. "Um, does anyone have any requests?"

"I'll go with you," Darcy offered, scooping up Nat's papers and effortlessly quick-filing them with her own. Either Darcy was used to working for Jane on more than a couple drinks, or her tolerance for alcohol was closer to Nat's than she'd originally guessed. 

"It's better that we let her cool down alone," Darcy whispered to her as they walked down the hall towards the elevator. "If someone's there to watch her get mad, she'll make mistakes and then start throwing stuff. Then I'll have to let her curl up under a lab table and cry for a couple minutes and you don't want to see that. If she's really worried about Thor it'll take all afternoon to get her out of there and back to work."

"I'm sorry, I didn't mean for--"

"Of course you didn't. Jane and Hill don't get along anyways. Jane and Fury are only a little better; Fury at least will let some of it just wash over him, but Hill doesn't know how to get past some of Jane's temper. Coulson would just ignore it and not give her anything back--well, you know how he was." Darcy shook her head. "I'd've loved to have Coulson as Jane's permanent liaison. Then I wouldn't have to deal with Fury and Hill and maybe he wouldn't have been assigned to the helicarrier...."

"Coulson was too senior an agent to simply work as a liaison," Nat reminded her, as gently as she could. Coulson's absence still stung, and not for the first time Natasha had to push her sorrow away, thinking of the waste of his death. Coulson deserved so much better. At least they'd gotten him his bagpipes for the funeral. 

Darcy took a deep breath with a hitch at the end, and Natasha looked over at her, surprised to see a tear trickle down the other woman's cheek. It was swiped away in a hurry, and Darcy managed to paste a smile on for her. "C'mon, let's see if we can hit the gyros cart on 79th before he packs up for the day. Jane likes Greek. That'll make her feel better."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I don't know if this came out right. I can imagine Natasha going at loggerheads with Hill pretty easily, but I also believe that she believes in SHIELD, Fury, and her orders with all her might. Well, this is how it came out, right or not. Thanks so much for the responses and kudos, everyone; it warms my lil' ol' heart right down to the cockles. Even to the sub-cockles.


	4. Chapter 4

Natasha didn't stay in the lab after lunch--well, what passed for lunch, anyway. Dr Foster didn't look up when they returned with a fragrant, steaming bag that was rapidly turning transparent from the dripping gyros grease, but her anger seemed to have passed, replaced, once again, by the single-minded focus that was the hallmark of her work. Darcy had to physically drag her from her workstation and set her down at an empty lab table, and order her to unwrap her gyro and eat. Once she did, Natasha found herself unable to look away: Dr Foster ate like...well, the closest comparison she could come up with was from her time spent amongst a group of high-tech jewel thieves in Mexico who doubled as luchadores when the crime business was slow. Those men faced food like they faced their opponents in the ring: targeting and eliminating every trace of breakfast, lunch, and dinner on their plates or in their hands, leaving not so much as a grease stain on their outlandish costumes and frankly disturbing masks. Jane focused on her gyro and fries, and nothing else, methodically and single-mindedly consuming each scrap of meat, green pepper, and tzatziki sauce. She even ate the crunchy little semi-burned micro-fries that Natasha had seen almost every other person, ever, just leave in the foil for disposal. When she was done, she smoothed her used napkins over the pieces of foil that had once held her lunch, then methodically folded them into a kind of foodservice-origami envelope that managed to keep any lingering splashes of grease or sauce perfectly contained. This she dropped in the used paper bag and, sucking the last soda out of the cup, flung the whole thing into a trash can. 

Nat's internal clock informed her that the good doctor's lunch had taken exactly four and a half minutes. 

Darcy elbowed her, and Nat compartmentalized the motion for later analysis: there were very few people, even amongst the Avengers, who were ever comfortable touching her. "When I can get her to eat, she eats like a horse," the younger woman commented, and pointed to Nat's own lunch, barely touched. "Don't forget about yourself." Her own lunch gone, Darcy produced a wet nap from her purse and cleaned her hands before taking up her--and Nat's--sheaf of papers again. 

Recognizing a gentle dismissal, Nat surrendered to her desire for a grease-nap and excused herself to the common room, flicking on the huge television and selecting a _Criminal Minds_ marathon that JARVIS suggested. Two episodes in, she recognized that she wasn't paying any attention. 

"JARVIS, can you give me any information on the Avengers' current mission?" 

"I'm sorry, Agent Romanov, but I will not have access to that information until Mr Stark returns and uploads his illicit hacks into my system," the AI apologized smoothly. "You do, however, have an appointment with SHIELD Medical for tomorrow afternoon for follow-up bloodwork and physical examination. Will 3 pm be a convenient time for you, or would you like me to reschedule the appointment?"

"They didn't have anything earlier?" A clearance from the doctors would put her back into rotation and back to work soonest.

"I'm sorry, Agent Romanov, but the SHIELD Medical scheduling system lists no earlier available appointments."

"No? I suppose 3 will be fine." She paused for a moment. "Hey JARVIS, got any ideas of what a bored and worried-out-of-her-mind Agent can do while all her teammates are off saving the world?"

"Your companions pursue various activities in their off-hours, Agent Romanov," JARVIS mused, (if an AI had musing capabilities) "Doctors Banner and Foster are often found in their labs, and Mr Stark spends much of his free time in his fabrication workshops. I believe he has scheduled a fifth complete restoration of his 1908 Model T for this week, but that will most likely be pushed back to make repairs to the Mark VIII after this engagement is complete. 

"Agent Barton divides his time between various amusements with Miss Lewis, both in and out of their private living areas, as well as the archery range, the weight room, and the climbing wall."

"There's a climbing wall?" Nat interrupted.

"There is, Agent Romanov, but I'm afraid your access to that part of the training center has been limited pending medical clearance."

"Of course." She sighed. "Go on."

"Captain Rogers attends modern culture tutoring sessions with Miss Lewis three times a week," JARVIS continued obediently, "completes physical training sessions six times per week, including weight training, rock climbing, track-and-field training such as distance and speed runs, hurdles, long-jump, discus and shot-put; and reserves Sundays for religious observance as well as handicrafts."

"Handicrafts?"

"Yes, Agent Romanov."

"You mean, like, _arts_ and crafts?" Nat giggled incredulously.

"I am not at liberty to divulge specifics, Agent Romanov. Captain Rogers has classified that particular information."

For a moment she had a vivid daydream of Steve gluing fistfuls of macaroni to pieces of construction paper. Nat asked the AI to clear her using her old Stark Inc. security clearance. If the AI had a face represented, she was sure he would have frowned at her. 

"Agent Romanov, your clearance was, of course, revoked at the time your SHIELD association was revealed."

"But I kept working for Pepper!" 

"Miss Potts assigned you a specific level of specialized clearance, Agent Romanov. Unfortunately, that clearance does not include personal habits of other members of the Avengers Initiative."

"You can tell me their workouts, but--" Nat had a sudden flash of memory: Steve, emerging from his rooms, something clicking in his pockets. Something metal. Cracking his knuckles and pulling on his fingers to stretch them. His head bent over the table with Bruce, discussing something in a low tone she hadn't been able to hear, but both of them demonstrating some kind of hand position. Hand-crafts? Handicrafts?

Before she knew what she was doing, Nat was halfway across the common area and heading for Steve's corridor of rooms. _This will violate every scrap of trust you've earned from this team,_ a voice in her head told her dully. _You're about to destroy all those hours of careful cultivation, just to find out what Captain America's hobby is._

I will be in and out in two seconds, she argued back, gritting her teeth. I'm going to look around and that's all. He never has to know.

_Do you think that super-serum only worked on his brain?_ the dull voice replied. You've read his dossier, you know that he'll be able to tell someone violated his space. He'll be able to smell that you were in there.

I'll turn on a fan. Besides, he'd probably be _tickled pink_ to know I snuck into his rooms.

_Not if he's not there when you do it._

Natasha stood before Steve's door, running down a checklist of ways she could get this information out of him: flattering, leading conversations with careful questions; tailing him, spying on him through the ductwork or sneaking up on him unawares; outright seduction to get herself into his rooms. Hey, Captain America could be fun in bed, with all that super-serum-induced strength and flexibility--even if he was a novice or a blatant virgin. She wouldn't mind popping the Cap's cherry. He'd love it, she'd get the information she needed, and everyone would go away happy.

_This isn't an op._  
Rogers was a super soldier--but he was not invincible.

Nat literally staggered, then put a hand to the doorframe to steady herself as the blood roared in her ears. Her heart thudded, but didn't seem to want to race: she shook her head to clear it, to snap out of what Coulson and Barton had dubbed "Widow Mode". It was how she focused on getting the information, or the computer chip, or the detonator, or whatever her mission objective was: turning her brain into a skill set operating system, giving all resources over to processing and responding to variables, obstacles, and puzzles. This wasn't an op. He wasn't a mark, or a target, or a threat. He wasn't much more than a displaced kid, a chronological refugee whose own special skill set might not always save the day. 

Widow Mode was gone; in its place was the gabbling, nattering, scratching worry that it had temporarily banished.

Trust. She'd spent almost no time here prior to this enforced vacation, preferring to train and rest between assignments at SHIELD headquarters, or doing research or writing reports in one of SHIELD's many topic-specific libraries and offices. Her own office was in the SHIELD barracks and had only her name on the door, the standard office furniture and equipment that everyone's office had come with, and a small safe she'd bought, upgraded, and brought in to hold her weapons, Bites, and her more common IDs and cash. While she'd been focused on being the best spy, the slickest assassin, the rest of the Initiative--hell, even bull-headed stubborn Barton--had been knitting themselves together, building up rituals, habits, and trust that revolved around the other Avengers. She'd been digging her claws into the fabric of SHIELD, the operations guidelines, the work environment, and the structure she'd grown to depend on--voluntarily leaving herself behind while her partner ( _partners_ ) ploughed ahead, forging a path into a future where they were needed, wanted, and depended upon--and without her, because she couldn't let go of what she was comfortable with.

No wonder Bruce didn't trust her. No wonder no one in this Tower trusted her. Stark, Banner, Rogers (and her heart squeezed a little at what she'd almost done)--she'd given them ample reason to not want her around. Barton and Darcy, their comfort level was based on Nat and Clint's long history; and hadn't Darcy elbowed Nat in the ribs, without fear of a retaliatory fist to the face? That was a relief, at least, that the woman she _had_ to trust to watch Clint's back, at least was comfortable enough with her to not worry if she was going to chop her head off, or black-bag her and send her up to Fury.

That wasn't enough. It couldn't be enough. And if they didn't come back...

JARVIS could, at least, give her information on the preferences she didn't know; he explained that his information was something anyone who'd watched someone else could gather, and so didn't have to be restricted. She gave him instructions to cue the Keurig and the regular coffeepot when the rest of the Initiative returned, and to inform them that the covered dishes in the warming oven were waiting for them. Nat knew that coffee, cookies and bread weren't about to cement the tiny fragments of goodwill she'd started establishing with this team, but at least it was a nice gesture, and would give them the idea that she hadn't spent the time waiting by doing anything that would harm herself, or anyone else. If they weren't back in the next twenty-four hours, she'd take the cookies and bread over to SHIELD and start fresh when she got back from her doctor's appointment. She'd also finish emptying her locker at the SHIELD barracks and bring the rest of her personal belongings back to the Avengers Tower tomorrow.

She made a fresh pitcher of plain green tea and settled herself into the couch in front of the television again, calling up the same _Criminal Minds_ marathon. When (and if) her team got back, she wanted to be the first to know.


	5. Chapter 5

"So that's a 'Nat-bot'."

The whole Initiative--the complete, but not necessarily whole-and-hearty Initiative--stood around a workbench in one of Stark's workrooms, regarding, with various levels of unease, the no-longer-steaming, partially-charred robot corpse that lay supine on its top. One arm had been ripped off at the shoulder; the head was partially skinned, revealing a surprisingly benign plastic-and-metal substructure underneath. The half-face that remained, however, was unmistakable and uncanny in its replication of Natasha Romanov. 

The hair was wrong, though: she'd cut it to chin-length and dyed it back to her natural red for the mission in Russia just before the Avengers Initiative was assembled. The robot's hair--what remained of it--was still long, cultured into curls, and a light strawberry blonde.

"Well, it gives us two things," Barton mused after a moment, shifting awkwardly on his crutches. "It means that Doctor Fucked-Up-In-the-Head knows who's on the team--"

"Not difficult, if someone spends enough time on the video footage available from the Battle of Manhattan," Rogers pointed out. "Darcy showed me, what? A full eight hours of video shot from TV cameras, cell phones, and personal cameras. All on Your Tube. More assembled footage from the battle than the actual battle itself." He frowned at his inability to avoid using the word 'assembled' (dammit, Tony!), but Nat thought there was a good chance that the cut along his jawline had twanged, too. The antibiotic ointment SHIELD included in their field med kits was effective as hell, but stung just as hard. 

"--and number two, it tells us that their intel on our personnel isn't current," Barton finished. "Nat, when's the last time you were blonde?"

"Tokyo," Natasha answered promptly. "Six months before the Initiative a--came together." 

Stark shot her a look, quirking an eyebrow at her avoidance of the 'a' word. She matched his gaze levelly, trying to ignore his black eye and the tape over his nose: even through his helmet, a chunk of flying concrete had smashed him in the face. He winked at her before turning back to the robot. 

"This is why I sent Hill and Sitwell over here," Fury rumbled at her, snaring her gaze with his single eye. "Your doppelganger here showed up on the other team and started trying to take out our agents. JARVIS confirmed your attendance in the Tower, but I had to be sure."

"I'm going to be indignant on behalf of my AI for you doubting his abilities, Nick," Tony put in, crossing his arms over his chest. "JARVIS is more than capable of telling bot from real girl."

"I wasn't doubting your AI, Stark; I was complimenting Agent Romanov on her hacking skills," Fury replied mildly, still not looking away from Natasha. "Or have you forgotten that she's the one who put War Machine back under Colonel Rhode's control? I have no doubt she would have been able to reprogram your AI to think she was still here."

"Well, Foster and Lewis both confirmed she was here all morning, till after Sitwell and Hill left," Banner said. Then he smiled wearily. "And she managed to make six dozen assorted cookies, plus fresh bread and coffee for us. That's not the work of a couple minutes."

"And I'm not blonde anymore," Natasha finished. She tugged on her hair with both fists. "See? Not a wig."

"I'm aware that what we thought was Agent Romanov is actually a robot double, thank you," Nick Fury stated loudly. The room stilled. "Now we need to find out why someone thought to build a robot double for Agent Romanov, and who knew she'd be on leave from the Initiative at the time of this attack." He eyed Barton. "If this isn't just coincidence, it means their intel isn't so out of date."

The heroes eyed the robot corpse before them, suddenly quiet.


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am going to attempt to throw some science in here. I will probably get it wrong. I'm sorry if I offend any of you real sciencey types, but I'm a liberal-arts person and the closest I get to chemistry is mixing drinks while dyeing tshirts in my kitchen sink. 
> 
> So. Science!

Work. Finally, there was work. Calling up Natalie Rushman from the Black Widow's Liar's Palace, Natasha threw herself into the work of tracking and identifying the Nat-bot's manufacturer and programmer. Her bloodwork returned with promising results (she couldn't go back on field rotation yet, but the last traces of chlorinide and diphenhydromine were working themselves out according to the expected schedule), and so for the forseeable future, Fury had tasked her with tracking down whoever had supplied this week's evil genius with a replica of her. 

She set up her own workstation in the Tower's research library (an entire floor filled with Tony Stark's schizophrenic book collection, where JARVIS directed her to everything from Azimov to last month's issue of _Popular Science_ ). Tablet, laptop, a fresh set of ball-point pens (five black, four blue, two red and two green: color coding is a useful tool in research); post-it flags (the store-bought ones, not Stark's "new and improved" sticky notes that permanently adhered themselves to pages, each other, fingers, pens, expensive books...) and a stack of five fresh yellow legal pads. And a whiteboard. 

Within the space of an hour her workstation had become the entropic center of the library, although Natalie Rushman's more-than-slight case of OCD meant that there was still a definite system of organization in place. Fury had ordered her security clearance modified to access some of the more esoteric locations in SHIELD's database and so she focused her preliminary research on finding recent persons with interest, experience, and/or research into the type of robotics the Nat-bot contained. Requests for information to and from Stark, Darcy, Banner, and various other SHIELD labs and researchers pinged back and forth from her tablet with comforting regularity.

Nat noticed when Banner entered the library, but didn't look up from the article she was scanning. She let him think she didn't notice, though, and feigned slight startlement when, after he'd been waiting at her desk for a full minute, she turned to face him.

"Doctor Banner!" She smiled winningly, the way Natalie would when faced with one of Stark's less-than-subtle leers in her direction. "Something I can help you with?"

"Ha, I didn't spook you, don't pretend," Banner grumbled, but it was with some humor. "Kinda surprised to see you here, instead of in your SHIELD office."

"Stark stocks a decent library, I'll give him that," Nat allowed. "He prefers to stay up-to-date on his competitors and rivals, although I refuse to believe that he'll ever acknowledge any of them as such. He's filed all of the information on HammerTech under the heading, "Pimple-Headed Buffoon"," she pointed to the folder on her laptop, "and Victor VonDoom is listed under "SMH"."

" 'SMH'?"

"Short for 'shake my head', as in 'in embarrassment or shame'." She folded her hands on the desktop, tilting her head inquiringly. "Is there something that you needed?"

He jumped a bit, then started patting his pockets. "No, I, uh, was just sent up with...." He found what he was looking for in the left breast pocket of his flannel shirt: a thumb drive. Holding it out to her, he smiled sheepishly when she raised an eyebrow at the patterns of hot-rod flames detailed on the sides. "Latest programming info from the bot's brain. A little interesting, the language isn't a typical...seems to be something evolved, a little less than modern, but not anything Tony's taking a look at, or willing to. Thought maybe you could...and origin, if there is one. Think you could find it?"

Nat plucked the flash drive from his hand, being careful not to touch him. "THank you. Is there something in here that necessitated a hand delivery? I've been sent plenty of information from the lab all morning with no issue."

Was there a little flush to his cheeks when he answered? He looked away, at least, which was a typical Banner avoidance technique: unless you're talking tech, he never wanted to risk looking you in the eye. "Nah. It's a little...the lab's getting crowded--well, you know Stark. You need enough space for him, and enough for his ego. Tends to squeeze a little bit in there, and I don't do well in confinement." He did glance at her then, just a quick check on her reaction. She did him the favor of nodding understandingly.

"Well, I appreciate the special delivery."

"No problem." He turned to go, then turned back, an unexpectedly quick movement. "Hey, are you--how long are you going to work on this?"

"My current assignment is to do it till it's done," she answered, "why?"

"No, I mean, did you want to take a break any time soon?"

She glanced at the status bar on the laptop: there was a lot of information on the little device, over 20 gigs, and the SHIELD virus-detection protocols were double-teaming with Stark's own security systems and going over each byte and bit at a frustrating rate. "I was going to finish cataloging possible manufacturing suspects. Is there something else you'd like me to look at?"

He squinted at her for a second, then laughed. "Oh, you are....you're not easy to predict, you know that?"

 

"I beg your pardon?" There was no indignation in her voice--she could tell he wasn't trying to put her on the defensive or off her guard. His habitual tics and tells usually broadcast Bruce's discomfort with the world at large, but now she noticed that if she ignored Natalie Rushman's urban-office-professional filter, that his discomfiture was much more focused. Pinpointed, in fact. On her.

"Cookies, they're one thing," Banner said, pacing away from her desk a little, "but you've been prowling around like a caged bear before the mission, and you let us come back to baked goods? I thought I'd have to tranq you to get you to stay here at the Tower when we left. And then your doppelganger showed up--I mean, I'd swear you were playing a part right now. Is this an operation to you? Are you just being Agent Romanov? The other day, when we...well, I liked walking with you," he finished lamely, running a hand through his salt-and-pepper hair. 

"You sound confused." Nat kept her voice neutral, but couldn't help the little thrill she felt fluttering under her breastbone. Banner was no open book himself, but this sounded like the beginning of something...promising. 

"And you sound like Miss Moneypenny. 'Of course, Mr. Bond.' 'Anything for you, Mr. Bond.'"

"Natalie Rushman, actually. One of Stark's former notaries. A very efficient researcher and a more perfect fit for this assignment." Her emphasis on the last word was not lost on him.

"So you--what? Switched cover stories to do this? Do you _need_ a cover story to do this? You can't research AI labs as Agent Romanov?"

"There isn't a whole lot I _can_ do as Agent Romanov, outside of SHIELD headquarters," she said conspiratorially, then sighed when he took off his glasses to pinch the bridge of his nose. "Are you familiar with the concept of the Liar's Palace, Dr Banner?"

"Yeah, of course. A visualization technique wherein a person compartmentalizes personality traits, skills and memories in order to create a separate personality that believes in whatever truth it is made to tell." He paused. "Are you saying--that's what you are? Some great bit walking Liar's Palace?" After another pause: "Should you be telling me this?"

"You have my medical file, Dr Banner," she said, "included in which is a psychological profile that details my use of this technique. And to answer your question, no, I am not just a 'walking Liar's Palace'. There are certain skills that are easier for me to utilize if I put myself in the mindset of one of the other... versions of myself, I suppose. Natalie Rushman is a version of me who is efficient and practiced at organizing and interpreting data, as well as extrapolating outcomes based on said data."

He stared at her for a moment, glasses in hand. Nat let the tension stretch between them, not dropping her gaze from his. Finally the laptop dinged: data clean, the information had downloaded and was ready for her perusal.

"So who's the real Natasha?" he asked quietly.

"Does it matter? We're all on your side, Doctor."

"Oh really?" He squinted. "So Natasha Romanov who came to round me up in Calcutta was on my side? _Agent_ Romanov who recommended I be confined when she found out Loki's plan, she's on my side? The woman who loves half-truths and selective disclosure, she's rootin' for me too, huh?" He turned to go and she stood up quickly to catch his wrist, taking the risk on startling him into a temper. 

"Bruce." He stared, incredulous, at her hand on his arm, then at her. "Yes, we're all on your side. _I'm_ on your side. I always have been. I understand if you don't trust me; I haven't given any real reason for any of you to do so." She felt the same little squeeze on her heart, remembering her near-infiltration of Cap's living quarters. "This is just...the way I am. It's the way I was made, the way I was trained. It works perfectly in most things, but a little less perfectly in others. I would hope, that when it comes to reconciling various aspects of someone's personality, that you'd be a bit more...understanding."

He sighed, a big heave of his broad shoulders through his compact frame. "You're right. I'm sorry." He patted her hand on his wrist, then covered it with his own: part of her brain cataloged the pressure he exerted, the size and spread of his fingers--but the rest of her gave in and enjoyed the warmth and strength of that hand. She shifted her grip, managing to release his right wrist and wrap her fingers around his left hand. She gave him a hesitant smile, which widened a little when she saw he was trying to smother his own unexpected smirk. 

After a moment, he said quietly, "I was originally going to ask you if you'd be interested in getting a sandwich or something from down the street. You know, when you get to a good stopping point." 

She squeezed his hand before letting go. "That sounds lovely," she said, glancing at the clock on her computer: she'd skipped breakfast in favor of coffee and getting to work, and it was now midafternoon. "I think now might be a good time to take a break." She slipped her feet back into the discarded shoes she'd worn to the library and walked around the desk. Bruce's gaze followed her appreciatively. 

"You look nice," he stated, with a shy smile. "Natalie....Rushman? She's got good taste."

"Thank you."

"You know nothing's implied, right?" he burst out when they reached the library doors, pausing with his hand on the push-plate. "I mean, I don't want to make you feel like you have to go if you don't want to, and there isn't....uh, I know, I know the Other Guy isn't anyone's choice of dinner companion."

Nat quirked an eyebrow. "Bruce," she said softly, "one thing that all the parts of my personality have in common is that we all like you. Please don't try to talk us out of it."

"It's just that I...well, I can't expect a woman to be comfortable with--" he rubbed the back of his neck, pacing away a little.

"Can we just have lunch, first?" she asked, holding her hand out to him again. He took it without looking her in the eye, folding her fingers very carefully in his, as though she might spook, or he might break them. She knew he was not comfortable with most forms of physical contact; for herself, Nat had a hard time shutting off the part of her brain that liked to list ways of incapacitating or disabling a person with a touch of the knee, arm, hand, neck... so physical contact was usually limited to combat situations. But for this, she thought she could adapt; a little tug brought him back close to her. He tried to hide a grin and failed. 

"Lunch sounds good," he murmured. Then he perked up and gave her a rakish grin. "Hey, how do you feel about shwarma?"


	7. Chapter 7

"That," Clint pointed at her--or what he thought was the _real_ her; he must've been seeing about six of Nat by now--and let his head flop over onto his own shoulder. "That," he repeated, sliding his hand up the neck of the whiskey bottle and down again, in a gesture that some part of his brain had to recognize was at least suggestive, "that is complete. And utter. Booooooooooooooolllshiiiiiiiiiit." His neck dragged his head upright for a moment and he squinted at his partner. "Bullshit," he repeated, for effect, before his head fell back onto his shoulder. 

_And I'm back to hating my partner,_ Natasha observed coolly, although it wasn't Clint's fault. Once in a blue moon he decided to test her tolerance and try to match her cup for cup...with predictable results. Like Steve, Nat's super-serum-enhanced metabolism didn't allow her to get drunk, and if it had, her dormant red-blooded Russian-ness would have stood her up sober long after Clint had passed out under the table, for shame and for pride and for _Mother Russia!_ The irritating part was that Clint knew it. He _knew_ she'd be stone-cold sober long after he'd passed out at the bottom of the bottle, and yet he still did this. _I guess someone's gotta keep the barflies off of him and his wallet in his...in_ my _back pocket,_ she sighed to herself. Clint roused himself from the drool-slicked pillow of his bicep. 

"Can' tell me," he slurred, "can' tell me a man...man smart as _Banner_...Banner's too smart t' turn down..." his hand flopped up and down at her in an evocative manner, and all she did was shrug.

Natasha flipped through the screens on her phone until she came up with the phone number she wanted. "Well, he did. Said he didn't want to hurt me and that the Other Guy got confused and angry when it comes to sex. So here I am."

"Booooooolll...." Clint raspberried into his armpit. 

She eyed him; a corner seat at a low table was keeping him from sliding down underneath the tabletop and normally she'd have slung him over her shoulder and muscled him out of the bar by this point. Her dizzy spells weren't going away, though, and she'd hate to have to weasel their way out of a drunk-and-disorderly when Barton was going to be absolutely no help whatsoever. With another sigh, Nat tapped the "call'' button and spoke briefly to the surprised voice on the other end. Eight minutes later, Captain Rogers ducked through the doorway of the 79th-street dive where Nat had decided to try to drink away the sting of Bruce's rejection.


	8. Chapter 8

"I have a bone to pick with you, Agent Romanov.!" Darcy called from the library doors and Nat had to look up, irritated at the interruption--she'd been in the middle of an information flow when Darcy barged in. The little brunette strode up to her desk and leaned over on her knuckles; Natasha leaned back with a delicate movement to avoid coming inappropriately close to Darcy's cleavage and silently saluted her aggressive boobage gesture, while at the same time asking, "And how can I help you today, Miss Lewis?"

"You are making two of my favorite men miserable, Agent Romanov, and that's making my life waaaaay harder than it has to be. Clint is an absolute fucking bear this morning, thanks in no small part to the idea that some day, some where, he might be able to drink you under the table. And in escaping to the lab to avoid his hungover ass, who do I come across but Doctor Manguish Banner, who is moping around like a shaved cat because you decided to cut your little affair off at the knees."

"Now, Miss Lewis--"

"Don't 'Miss Lewis' me, Nat, we're long past that bullshit."

"Ok, Darcy. I'm sorry that Barton and I went out last night, and I'm sorry that you had to deal with both he and Dr Banner this morning. I never intended for anyone else to get involved in this--"

"Jeez, Nat, you don't get it, do you?" Darcy threw her hands up in the air and paced in front of Nat's desk. "I don't care that Clint is hungover; I've seen him wasted before and he's a grownup, he can handle himself. What is bugging me the most is that you're here in the library chasing red herring while a perfectly fine man is moping around the lab, wasting his perfectly good looks and perfectly adorable body in languishing after you!" 

" 'Perfectly fine body'?" 

"Oh please, you know I'm right."

"I'll concede. Fine."

"Do you know how long he's been nursing that crush on you? How often I've had to pretend that he's being clever when he asks about if you hung out with Clint and I the night before? And how much I've had to listen to Jane complain that he's not pulling his weight when you breeze by the lab and he's mooning out the window after you for hours on end?"

Nat cocked an eyebrow at Darcy. "I have a hard time believing that Dr Banner would waste lab hours on a little crush."

"That's what I'm saying, Nat. This isn't a 'little' crush. Bruce has had a lot of practice distancing himself from people by necessity, and it took a lot for him to open up to you, even just a little. And it took a lot of nerve, Miss Widow, for you to alienate him like that!"

"Darcy, look, I appreciate that you're standing up for him and you're a good friend for doing so--but Bruce and I, we're not going to work."

"Why not? Because you hit a little snag in the bedroom?"

Nat glared at her. "How did you find out about that?"

Darcy snorted. "Please. Even if Clint didn't talk in his sleep it's not like you need to be a super spy to get gossip from him when he's drunk."

"Barton doesn't talk in his sleep," Nat retorted, knowing it was a little cruel and deciding that she needed the tactical advantage more. Darcy 'harrumphed' to let her know the tactic hadn't worked: between the three of them, any past-related awkwardness had long gone the way of the dodo.

"Well, I don't know about you, but I don't relish the idea of stringing a man--a perfectly adorable man, I will agree--stringing a man along when I know there's going to be an insurmountable obstacle in our path a little ways ahead. That didn't seem fair to him."

"Since when do you give up at the first sign of trouble?"

"The first sign--!"

"Yeah, the first sign. Everyone's got relationship problems, Nat. I know you can't have had many normal boyfriends, you being you and all, but seriously, you have to be able to be a little less seventh-grade about the guys you wanna date. Barton--well, I understand not getting any useful relationship information out of him. He's got the emotional maturity of a six-year-old when he's not being a fifteen-year-old horndog. But still. I would think that the psychology of a relationship, at least, would be something you were familiar with."

"It's not....I can pretend, Darcy. I'm good at pretending." How many times was she going to have to give this explanation this week? "But...you're right. Much as I hate to admit it, you're right. What I did wasn't fair to Bruce."

"You don't have to tell me that."

Nat rolled her eyes and Darcy shook her head. "No really, you don't have to tell me that. You should tell Bruce. At the very least take him out of the lab for a talk. Make Jane stop giving him dirty looks for an hour so she can lose herself in the data and not care what he does when he comes back."

"Dr Foster isn't that petty."

"No, but she is that irritable when Thor's gone back over the Bridge for a couple days. Please? For real, this time. Please go talk to Bruce and work this out. He really likes you, Nat, and I'm pretty sure you really like him, too. At the very least, if you go talk to him, I win five bucks off Stark. He laid odds on your respective stubbornnesses, not your adult sensibilities."

"Tony would never bet on adult sensibility." Nat was quiet for a moment. Their luncheon date had been nice, increasingly flirty as the afternoon wore on...it'd been hard to return to the library, and she'd knocked off at five like everyone else (setting some long-form calculations to collate overnight) in the hopes that Bruce would be interested in a more intimate dinner. And he had: dinner in her rooms, a lot of conversation that ended with cuddling and kissing on her couch. And when he'd panicked at the rising heat in their contact, she'd....well, she'd kicked him out, hadn't she? He'd stammered something about the Other Guy and she'd switched off the part of her that liked him so that the others, the rest of the Black Widow, could look objectively at their budding romance and calculate its odds of failure. And then there was the argument that consisted of both of them trying to keep their heads, for good reason, and he'd said something and she'd said something in reply and he'd left and she'd needed a completely ineffectual drink.

Darcy was studying her face and Nat could see in her expression that she knew exactly what Nat was thinking. "We're all a little cruel to each other sometimes," Darcy murmured, crouching down to lean her forearms and chin on the desk. "It's part of being in this tower, in this environment. You all spend so much time fighting the rest of the world that you can't help fighting each other, too. Bruce has seen it. We've all seen it. Clint and I have done it a lot, not so much any more now that we know that's what's going on. You just haven't been around as much."

"Right." She could see the logic, if you could call it logic. It made sense. "Ok, Darcy," she sighed, picking up some of her printouts just to have something to shuffle, "I will have a talk with Bruce, if he'll consent to talk to me."

"Oh, I think he will. So you'll go see him? Like, today?"

"When I'm done here, I will go see Dr Banner."

"Ok. Good. You better." Darcy forked two fingers at her own eyes, then pointed them at Nat. "I'm watching you, Agent Romanov."

"Noted and understood, Miss Lewis." Darcy winked and turned to saunter out of the library. "Hey Darcy?" Nat called, and when she turned around: "...thanks."

___________

Follow the money. The money was always going to lead to what you wanted to know--all you had to do was follow it. There was no such thing as an invisible transaction; digital credits and cold hard cash both left ghostly trails to follow, if you knew where to look. Following the money was the best way to finding out, well, anything.

And the money-trails were leading her in some interesting directions. Start with funding a research lab in the Ukraine that supplied information to several medical information firms based in Germany and Poland that collected and collated data for a major Japanese pharmaceutical research corporation. The pharmaceutical research focused on neural conductivity and that data went to universities in the States with large neurology studies departments. ...

Eventually there is a series of payments--small in comparison to the billions that are the source of the river of funding--that are made out to a small-town genius in California who has been recently denied an interview for a position at Stark Industries Robotics. His theses are concerned with the replication and imitation of memories, senses, and perceptions as received by humans but experienced by man-made objects. This genius waxes poetic about the possibilities of technology that could arise from this line of thinking: cars that can tell how fast they're going, what the road conditions are, and where the other cars are in relation to themselves, and thus drive themselves. Surgical robots that would apply the exact right amount of pressure to, say, pinch off a hemorrhaging artery without completely destroying it. 

Robotic drone soldiers that could assess a threat with a human's perceptions and react effectively and appropriately in any given situation.

 

"You missed dinner."

Of course she'd heard the library doors open, heard the tread across the carpet, but her mind was elsewhere: the headwaters of this flood of cash had to be massive, had to be _somewhere_ ; there was no way this much money just appeared out of the ether and back into it. 

Bruce was standing in front of her desk. He looked as rumpled and tired as she felt, and belatedly she wondered what time it was. 

"I was supposed to come talk to you," Nat rubbed her eyes. "I'm sorry. I think I found something, though."

"That's fine. You don't have to worry about me." His voice was seated way down in his chest and it sounded like it sulked there, unwilling to be used or abused in this manner. 

"Bruce." Nat stood and stretched a little. "I was unfair to you, and I need to apologize for it."

"Ah. Is this more, what do you call it? 'Red in your ledger'?" He squinted at her, then took off his glasses to polish them on a corner of his shirt. "You need to balance out your karma before you go to bed every night?" When she didn't answer right away, he glanced at her and looked away again, then put his glasses back on. "Yeah, I should apologize for that, too." 

"No, I deserved it. I shouldn't have been so hasty the other night, Dr Banner, and I didn't take the time that I should have to consider your side of things. For that, I apologize."

"I should have expected it. I mean, I've had the suspicion that the Other Guy wasn't going to be the world's best wing-man. Your reaction...well, let's just say I understand it. You're not the first to...Did you say you found something?"

"I, uh...yes, there's a trail of funding from the Ukraine, but I don't think that's the origin point. I found a doctoral candidate in robotics that's based in SoCal who has some programming background; his coding language is almost identical to what you sent up the other day...."

For a moment they were absorbed in her work and Bruce shared a happy grin with Natasha: a step closer to finding out who this latest threat was. His smile softened a little and he brushed an errant lock of hair behind her ear. "Good work," he murmured, then seemed to catch himself; Bruce straightened and adjusted his glasses. It was his most frequent tell: in a world where he felt awkward all the time, a touch to his glasses meant that the awkwardness was getting to him, getting under his skin and heating up his perpetual anger. 

_К черту его гнев*_ , she thought, and leaned in to plant a soft kiss on the side of his mouth. Pulling back an inch, she gazed at the spot she'd kissed and whispered, "Can we start over?" 

His breathing slowed after a minute, although Nat couldn't be sure if it was her own heart thundering in her ears or if she could actually hear his. "You know this doesn't make the problems go away, Natasha. I like you. I do. And I think I can trust you. But the Other Guy, he's never not gonna be there. He's never going to let me have a...I can never guarantee that if I'm not keeping tabs on him, that if we're in the middle of--"

"I know." Neither of them moved. "But I also know you haven't been back in the world long, and there are ways to keep the Other Guy under wraps. I don't think you've tried them all."

"No, I haven't. You're right." He turned just enough, tilted his head the exact amount. Just before their lips met, she felt him smile. "I guess I should look into a few of those."

She definitely heard heated whispering just past the library doors, but decided not to mention anything. She didn't want to talk anymore, but she almost giggled when her brain fountained up with _Наконец! Обратно в действие!_

"They laid bets on us," Bruce murmured against her lips. "I think I just heard Rogers collect."

She pulled back just a little. " _Rogers_ was betting on...this?"

Bruce gave a sheepish little laugh. "Hey, they guy's a romantic. What can you say?"

"I just...Rogers and I had a couple awkward days at the beginning of the week..."

"Yeah, well--and no offense to you--but you gotta know that the Captain's never lonely for long, right?"

"I figured as much. You, on the other hand, have been lonely too long, I think." She traced one fingernail down his jawline. 

"We gotta tell everyone else about what you found."

"I bet they followed you up here. If they've been listening, they know already."

A discreet chime preceeded JARVIS's tasteful intrusion. "Agent Romanov, Dr Banner, Mr Stark would like me to inform you that yes, he has been listening, yes, he does know what you're talking about, Agent, and that in fact, the largest portion of today's winnings belong to Agent Barton."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *"to hell with his anger"  
> **"finally a little action"


	9. Chapter 9

The rain drummed steadily against the window to Nat's balcony; not for the first time, Bruce thanked Tony Stark's ego and the need for self-gratification that made him build Stark....Avengers Tower high enough that they could experience the weather before the streets of New York masticated it into dirty drizzle or dirty slush. Not a lot of light reached this side of the tower, not way up here where their living quarters gave them spectacular views of everyone else's rooftops and helipads. Bruce had been ok living in Calcutta, with its sardine-tight press of humanity and all of humanity's smells and noises and currents and tides, but even he had to admit that their solitude, somewhat ironic as it literally sat atop the crush of New York, was soothing. An almost unnoticed pulse of red aircraft-warning lights ebbed and faded up at them from the towers and roofs below, but otherwise the darkness out the window was as close to complete as it could be. 

Natasha preferred the darkness, he knew; he didn't know how much she knew about how much _he_ knew, but what he hadn't gleaned from her medical file, he'd picked up in guileless and completely innocent discussions with Steve about their shared serum enhancements. Natasha saw better in the dark than most housecats, heard better in the dark than several species of domesticated dog. She slept better in the dark because of those enhancements: her ability to pick up on tiny sounds allowed her to relax a little and get the rest she needed. He wondered why she hadn't stirred when he'd gotten out of bed (as quietly as he could) and come to the window to watch the rain.

"Bruce? Everything ok?" As if cued, Natasha sat up in bed, softly tousled and absolutely adorable in the low light. Bruce made himself begin to smile before turning around: no need to arouse suspicion. 

"Yeah, yeah, no, I'm fine. I'm great, actually. I just...." he gestured uselessly at the room and stole a glance downwards, hoping against hope that proximity with the cool air and the soothing sound of the rain had alleviated his reason for leaving her side. He told himself he only imagined the racheting sound that was her eyebrow arching in sardonic disbelief.

"You don't sound fine. Why don't you tell me what's wrong?" _Instead of making me draw it out of you like I was pulling out your chest hair with pliers_ went unspoken, but Bruce could hear it in the air, like a soft reverberation. How does she do that? He wondered. She sounds like she cares so much, and yet even with that there is a threat hanging in the air. Is that something she learned from SHIELD, he wondered, or was it part of the reason SHIELD had been OK with Barton's impromptu recruitment of the Black Widow?

"...Bruce?" Natasha prompted gently, tossing the covers aside and rising to pad over to him. He'd been a little suprised by her choice of sleepwear: not slinky, sexy lingerie, but department-store sleep shirts and stretchy, wide-legged pants. Definitely comfortable, and, he supposed, the best choice if she were ever, say, attacked in her sleep. He shook his head to snap himself out of his reverie and answer his new girlfriend.

"Just...ah. Remember that thing, what we were, um, disagreeing about a few days ago? Way back when?" Bruce's perma-squint was only partially due to his bad eyesight; most of the time his face was stuck in a cringe at the horrible attempt at injecting humor into his conversations. He tried to sound dry, droll, sarcastic, and witty, and usually arrived at lame, weak, and anemic. Tony was so much better at biting sarcasm, but Bruce held out hope for effective learning via osmosis. If he hung out with Tony long enough...

"Did you...was there a, a man-reaction when you woke up?"

"Yup. I was standing 'ware. Flag was up the pole. Sprouting a sequoia. Ten-hut. Had a little rise in my Levi's--"

"God," Natasha laughed, "I don't know who you sound like more--Barton or Stark. And I don't know which is worse."

Bruce made a face. "Great. Now you're going to associate me getting an erection with either of them making dick jokes."

"No," she reached up to touch his cheek, then trailed her fingers along his jawline, "I associate you getting an erection with a great sense of anticipation and hope."

He caught her hand, held it to his chest. "Natasha, I've told you why we can't--"

"No, you've told me why you _think_ we can't, based on one experience you had when your...relationship...with the Other Guy was still brand-new."

"I have no reason to believe that anything's going to be different!"

"Don't you?" she cocked her head to one side, still gazing up at him. "Before the Helicarrier Incident and the Battle of New York, you'd gone more than a year without incident, after spending the previous eighteen months on the run from anyone and everyone. Somehow in those eighteen months, and the following year, you learned to control the Other Guy. I'm willing to bet that control extends to..." she drew her hand down, tracing her nails across his abdomen, "...other things, as well."

"Are you trying to seduce me, Agent Romanov?" Bruce rumbled, trying for a moment to enjoy her touch.

"I'm not sure. If I am, is it working?"

He gave a breathy chuckle, trying to gently arrest her hands as they smoothed themselves over his skin. "Yes, and that's the problem. Please, Natasha--"

She dropped her hands and stepped away, but didn't stop gazing at him. "You know I'm not afraid of you."

"I'm not afraid of me either, but I'm not the only one here, am I?" Hadn't they already had this conversation? And hadn't it gone badly for the both of them? 

"What, exactly, are you afraid of?"

He laughed again, but it wasn't a pleasant sound. "You have to ask? Seriously? I'm afraid I'm going to hurt you. I'm afraid we'll be--"

"Making love?"

"Making love, having sex, however you want. In the heat of the moment. I'm afraid that I will finally get to touch you in all the ways I've wanted to touch you and I will finally get to see you in all your incredible ...natural state, and just when it can't get any better I'm afraid that you are suddenly going to show up in front of me as a pile of , of, hands and arms and something else, because the Hulk has shown up and torn you limb from limb and there's nothing I can do about it because he came forward and I wasn't here to stop him." Bruce ran out of breath and automatically sucked in a lungful of air, letting it out slowly so that the lid settled back on the simmering pot of his emotions. Natasha continued to gaze at him.

"So your primary concern is that _you_ will lose control."

"Well, yeah. _Un petit mort_ is a loss of control, right? And when I lose control the Other Guy picks it up."

"I've seen you control that change before."

"Yeah, when I decided that it was going to happen, when I knew it was coming."

Natasha's mouth quirked. "Are you telling me you don't know when an orgasm is coming?"

He glared at her in the dark. She sat back down on the bed. 

"Bruce, please, come back to bed."

"I don't want to put you in danger, Natasha."

"Have we met, Dr Banner? Do you know what I do for a living?"

"Natasha, you can't handle him. You know you can't. And you know that if he's really going to get out, I can't either. I can't control him."

"I'm not worried about him."

"You should be."

"I'm not. Know why? Because I think I can control you."

"Jesus, Tash." It was a mark of how upset he was, that Bruce gave into convenience and used her nickname. "I wasn't into that whole kink scene before the Other Guy showed up, and I really don't think restraints and pain-inducing devices are going to be a good idea now."

"That's not what I mean, Bruce. I think you know that." She got up from the bed again and paced over to him, twined her arms around his neck and threaded her fingers through his hair. "Do you trust me?"

He sighed, and dropped a kiss on her forehead. "Yeah, Natasha. I trust you." And the thought that cane to him then was so simple that he could have smacked himself in the forehead for not thinking of it sooner--only Natasha was in his arms, and that wasn't something he cared to change at the moment. "Do you trust me?"

"Yes, I do. Please come back to bed."

Kissing...kissing was fine. Kissing was just a single sensory focus, one that he didn't have to abandon everything else for. Kissing Natasha was calming, and comforting, and exciting without necessarily being too arousing. As incongruous as it seemed he'd actually been on one or two dates in that two-and-a-half-year-span of living under almost everyone's radar; he'd taken a librarian to dinner one night in a suburb of Toronto, and about six months later he'd given in to the flirtations of a hostess at one of his hotels and let her cook him dinner. Neither evening had gone past a makeout session in the car, or on the couch, before he'd reined himself in and said goodnight, but kissing, he knew, he could handle. 

"Bruce," Natasha murmured against his mouth, "take a deep breath, ok?" He obliged, and let it out slowly as she nibbled her way down his chin to his throat. The throat: a terribly vulnerable area, but injuries and super-serums aside, he knew she couldn't hurt him even if she tried. Ok, no pain there, no worry, nothing bad, just the electrifying press of her hot mouth to the pulse point at his adam's apple and the delicate nibbles as her teeth passed above his collarbone. Her hands stayed pressed to his bare skin on the back of his neck and just above his last rib, perfectly respectable and not moving on their own; her legs were entwined with his, no subtle shifts or changes in pressure. The only thing moving on his skin was her maddening, skillful mouth: lips, tongue and teeth traversing the length and hollows of his neck until he shivered. 

"Deep breaths," she reminded him before reclaiming his mouth, and now he took his own turn to study her neck and earlobes, tonguing her pulse points and sucking the skin at her clavicle dimple, breathing deeply and evenly through his nose all the time. Making observations: first, of known things, like how Natasha would coo just a little, not quite a laugh, if he ran the tip of the tongue aroudn the curve of her ear. How she would time her own deep breaths with his so that neither had to breathe in what the other had just expelled. New things, then, like how her grip on the back of his neck tightened perceptively, but involuntarily, when he pressed his teeth into her throat, and how she looked at him, pupils wide and breath a little ragged in the dark, when he came up for air again.This time she pulled him close, whispering her reminder to breathe, and began kneading the skin under her hands, Slowly her fingers pushed into his muscles , glided back out over his skin, drifted up and through his hair. She touched, and he tasted: just the pressure of her hands on his back and arms and neck, and the pressure of his mouth on her shoulder, He didn't bother worrying about a hickie or the reactions it would get from the other Avengers: Natasha healed quickly, bruises and gunshot wounds alike. 

When her fingernails traced down across his chest and around his nipples, he decided to scare her a little. Not a lot; Natasha hated surprises--but a little spontinaiety couldn't hurt either of them, could it? He growled--not a Hulk-growl, which his body was simply too small to produce--but a Bruce-growl, one that let her knew he was done with this one-thing-at-a-time game. She drew back, startled.

"I had an idea," he started, hating how lame it sounded, but then continued. "I mean, if you're up for ...for some, uh, Latin?" Oh Jesus. He would never have a good line. Never. He pushed past that mortification and found the hem of her shirt with one hand and the hem of her pants with the other. 

"I trust you," was all she said, lips beestung-big and pupils on their way to blowing wide as she leaned back on the bed. 

He kissed her belly-button, feeling the muscles in her abdomen tighten and shift as she undulated herself to lie flat. She had to know what was coming, right? Well, he thought, hopefully she was going to be the one coming....and he almost stopped to slap his own forehead at the terrible mental joke. Stopping, however, would be mean and unfair, and Natasha's patience with him didn't deserve mean or unfair. 

He trailed kisses down her belly, parting her knees to plant kisses along all the scars that criscrossed her knees and thighs. He breathed deeply, slowly, hanging on to the meditative practice so that he could justify Natasha's trust in his personal control. He laid one big palm over her smooth, hairless mons (he'd asked, the first night they'd slept in the same bed and she'd been naked; she'd shrugged, explaining that if there was no carpet, no one questioned the color of the drapes) and the other wrapped under one of her legs to flatten atop her pelvis. He moved his first hand and licked. 

Natasha arched on the bed with a sigh that didn't have enough voice to be called a moan, and reached down to stroke his hair. His lips puckered around the little nub of flesh at the top of her slit and he nibbled, then gave another long stroke with his tongue. Morbid--or mortal?--curiosity had led him to pick up one of the cheap, many-times-removed reprints of an English translation of the Kama Sutra at a tourist shop in Delhi. While the illustrations had been almost childish and the translation shaky at best, he'd nonetheless been wistfully intrigued by some of the techniques presented in its thin pages. This one, he'd figured, was safe to try: Teasing the Seed from the Pomegranate. Boy, he thought idly, repeating the cycle of pucker, nibble, lick, she is really wet....

Moving downwards, he slid his tongue against the silky skin of her and angled it inside, flexing and circling around her opening. Now Natasha found voice for her moans and he could feel her muscles squeezing just past the reach of his tongue, wordlessly begging for deeper penetration. He spread his fingers against her thigh but didn't slide in, not yet: Natasha was moving in rhythm with his deep, steady breathing now, rolling her hips against his face and making _the_ most gratifying noises. He blew a focused breath on her swollen clit and chuckled when she did, then suckled it again. Her hands moved ceaselessly over his hair, never pulling or tugging, but just moving because they had to move. 

One slicked finger slid inside her and they both moaned: her muscles contracted around his finger and he had to give in and imagine, just for a moment, what that would feel like around his swollen cock. The focused breathing was helping him maintain control, but nature was taking its course and there was a tent slowly rising in his own pajama pants. He added a second finger and rubbed the ball of his thumb over her clit, sitting back to breathe deeply a few times. Once he was sure his pulse had slowed, Bruce curled his fingers inside her and took a love-bite of her clit once more. 

He had to pull back again a few minutes later to breathe, but as soon as his tongue slicked its way up her pussy Natasha arched on the bed and gave a single, wordless shout; Bruce felt the muscles in her thighs flex and quiver, fighting to stay still as the orgasm rolled through her. Her inner muscles milked his fingers and he couldn't help but suck in an irregular breath as they rolled up and down inside her; her hands stayed still and calm on his head, although he could tell she wanted to pull his face into her pussy and grind, just as much as she wanted to clamp her legs around his head and not let go until her orgasm was complete. Control, he thought admiringly, using his free hand to wipe his face. Wow.

When her breath slowed, he propped his chin on the mattress beside her. "How's that for an acceptable compromise?" Bruce joked, waggling his eyebrows Groucho Marx-style. 

"that was..." Natasha rolled her eyes at him, then licked one finger and drew an imaginary hash mark on an imaginary scoreboard above her head. "You win, Dr. Banner. Well-played." She rolled to face him, gracefully reordering her shirt and pants with a worried expression. "I regret that you couldn't take part, though," she said, twining her fingers through his. 

"I don't." Bruce smiled. ''Hey, I get to touch you, make you let go like that? I'm fine with the Other Guy not joining in. I'll take this for now." The details and practice of other things could wait, indefinitely, perhaps. But the taste of Natasha on his lips and fingers? That had been an excellent risk.

"Me too," Natasha smiled, blissful in the gloom. "In fact, I'll take that any time you want."


	10. Chapter 10

Nat was pretty sure Barton hadn't ever been to Stark's research library before, but she had to give him full cool points when he dropped out of the air duct behind the stacks and sauntered casually, albeit dustily, out to her information nest near the doors. 

"You rang, madam?" he called, hands in his pockets, his very worst JARVIS impersonation. Clint had his full charm face on: he and Darcy must have been as preoccupied as she and Bruce had been the night before. Good. Barton would be fired up to right the wrongs of the world, and she could finally report something to Fury and Sitwell that amounted to more than just a less jargon-tastic version of what Stark and Bruce were telling him. 

"Clint, come tell me if I'm seeing this right." Nat didn't need to take her eyes off the screen to know when her partner leaned in over her shoulder. "I'm mapping the wireless signal that Stark dug out of the Nat-bot's transponder. Of course it's bounced from servers all over the world, but it keeps coming back to here--" she pointed to her screen, where a location was flashing on a map, highlited in blue. "The location is unremarkable and I can't dig up anything on it. I mean, there is literally nothing available for those GPS coordinates--not in Stark's database, not in ours, not even on Google Maps. It's just some gold-rush ghost town out on the Nevada/California border, with one gas station and about two hundred residents. No factories, a couple farms...not even a wireless service provider registered for the county."

"But the name seems familiar."

"Yeah. I just don't know why."

"No reason why you should." Nat turned to look at Barton, whose face had settled into the hard, stony lines she knew so well. He was pissed, and he was focused. "You've never had to use the safehouse there."

"There's a safehouse? A SHIELD safehouse?"

"Ayup. An old one. I haven't had to use it in years. The town's just a beard." While she didn't care for the phrase, Natasha knew what he meant by it: two hundred residents would be justification for water supply, fuel, electricity, and other amenities the safehouse would need. The town was there as a cover, even if none of the residents knew anything about SHIELD or spies or had ever even seen anything unusual. And if the signal she was following was bouncing repeatedly back to a location with a SHIELD safehouse...

Barton stood and pinched the bridge of his nose at the same time that Nat leaned back in her chair to perform the same gesture. He was the one who sighed, but she said aloud what neither of them wanted to be true.

"So now we have a mole."


	11. Chapter 11

_"Well, Agent Romanov, you'll be happy to know that I've put the paperwork in to clear your return to fieldwork," the doctor announced, flipping her chart closed and spearing her with a glare over the tops of his glasses, "but I want you to seriously consider laying off the caffeine. Your system has been purged of both the harmful and the so-called harmless chemicals in it, but even with your...unique physiology, you were consuming a massive amount of stimulant daily." He held up a hand to forestall her protests. "Try keeping it down to a pot a day, will you?"_

Romanov and Barton and Stark and Banner arrived outside Fury's office at the same time and could instantly tell that both pairs bore the same news. First an epic staring contest took place--Nat won, of course; Banner couldn't stare at her for long without blushing and Clint wondered wearily when he was going to move on from that--and then Stark held up his right fist and his left hand with three fingers extended. Barton threw for their team--a quick drop of rock, rock, paper did it for them, and Nat and Barton strode unannounced into Fury's office with the two scientists hot on their heels. 

"A mole?" Fury quirked his bad-eye eyebrow at Nat, gathering her data into his hands. "How sure are you?"

"Damn sure, Nick, since we've got the same thing," Stark slapped his handful of file-folders down on Fury's desk, then snatched them back with an "Ah-ah-ah!"  
"You don't seem surprised to hear such a scathing condemnation of one of your employees. What could you _possibly_ be hiding from us now? Secrets, secrets are no fun..." he taunted.

"We've had our suspicions for some time, Mister Stark, but didn't know there was a connection between _that_ suspicion and _this_ particular incident," Fury explained patiently, thumbing through Nat's carefully organized dossier. When he came to the location of the safehouse named in the file, he looked at Barton. 

 

_"I suppose you're going to try to bully me into putting you back on active duty first thing," the doctor remarked as Natasha paced a fifth steady mile on the treadmill, still breathing evenly into the respirator mask and showing no sign of fatigue at her 8 mph pace. Though her feet and calves protested the old habit at first, she could feel her muscles warming, stretching, and beginning to respond as though she hadn't been almost flat on her ass for the past eight days._

_Nat removed the respirator enough to respond. "Working on a case right now," she said, by way of reassurance, "all desk work, so no hurry to close it."_

_The doctor busied himself with her chart, making a note here and checking something else off there. "Cold case files?"_

_"Nope, brand new and interesting._

"Care to wager on your next assignment, Barton?" Fury murmured, then held out a hand for the file Stark still held. Still playing his games, Stark made to hide it behind his back, but Banner grabbed it and handed it to the Director, who nodded over the information. "Independently-confirmed conclusions?" He asked, more of a formality than anything. "Very well. Agents Barton and Romanov, you will pick up your new identity and cover packets from Research and Planning in the morning. Romanov, send me the rest of your research. Mister Stark, Doctor Banner--"

"Backup? Entourage? Cover story? Personal assistants?" Tony jumped in.

"...Thank you for your assistance. I hope identifying the bot's point of origin is going just as well?"

The two scientists exchanged a look. "It's slower going," Banner finally admitted, "but Tony thinks he might recognize the style of manufacture."

"Former SI prospect, real bright kid," Tony broke in, "MIT hotshot but a bit of a fetishist when it came to the actual behavioral programming. Was gonna bring him in on the whole LMD thing but the six sexual harassment claims from his classmates put the kibosh on that."

"Six?" Clint could decide if he wanted to be appalled or impressed. 

"Yup. His thing was getting his fembots to chat up real coeds, then trying out his sensory-replacement software by trying to get them to take the fembots home with them. Gotta admire his initiative with the remote-host groping, but Pep veto'd his hiring on for that very reason."

Nat knew she'd liked Pepper for a reason. She was the mitigation in Stark's otherwise unchecked douchery.

Outside Fury's office, Banner caught Nat's elbow and pulled her aside. "Are you going back out in the field so soon?" He whispered, brown eyes big and worried. 

"It had to happen sometime, " she reminded him in a normal voice. Inside the headquarters of one of the best-funded and -run covert ops organizations in the world, what was the point of whispering? "You and I both knew that. I can't...I'm not cut out to sit in the Tower day after day."

_"Desk work, huh? What about?"_

_"Doctor, you know I can't divulge that information to you."_

_"Right. Of course. Aren't I silly."_

"I know." He looked down at the floor for a moment, his battered loafers, then back at her. There was the hint of a grin on his face. "Do I get to pine over you while you're away? Mope at my lab table like Darcy and Jane do?"

She gave him her most wicked grin. "Only if you think you can keep up with Darcy when she breaks out the vodka. Girl is a champ."

"Oh, I've seen. Did you get to the Patsy Cline phase of their while-the-boys-are-away coping session?"

Nat eyed him, mystified. "No, but somehow I can picture you doing a pretty good rendition of "Walkin' After Midnight"."

"Not at all. "Walkin' " is Jane's song."

_"Good to see the rest of the Initiative got back whole and hearty after their last engagement," the doctor remarked as she zipped up her boots. "Always a hard time, waiting for that group to get back after an engagement; never know what you're going to come home with."_

_Nat mmm-hmmm'ed at him, trying to disentangle her wristwatch and necklace that had been shoved in her pocket. "I don't know that I'd call them 'whole and hearty', Doctor."_

_"Oh, well, as healthy as a group can be after facing a robotic threat like that," he amended._

"Clearance," Nat blurted out, stopping in the middle of the hallway.

"What?" Bruce was already a few steps away, belatedly halting to turn around and stare at her. 

"I'm an idiot," she explained calmly. "The doctor shouldn't have had that information." She spun on her heel, boots clicking rapidly as she strode back to the elevator and Fury's office. 

Fifteen minutes later they were headed back down the corridor, in the wake of a team of SWAT-geared security specialists headed over to the SHIELD Medical wing. Informing Fury had taken ten seconds; mobilizing the security team, Hill, and Sitwell to intercept the suspected mole had taken less than three minutes. Fury's trust in Natasha was absolute, and her instincts were seldom wrong: if Stark's suspicions were correct, as well, this whole situation would be resolved and closed as soon as the Nat-bot's creator was apprehended--which Fury assured them would be in the next three to four hours. She had to laugh.

"What's so funny?" Bruce asked as they slid into the backseat of the car that would take them back to the Tower.

Nat slid her hand into his. "Lots of things," she smiled at him, and kissed his bristly cheek. "A week ago I thought I was going to kill you all just to have something to do."

"And here you've managed to save the day again," Bruce replied, wrapping an arm around her shoulders. "All is right with the world?"

"Well, I've got a superhero-genius scientist sleeping over tonight, and while we've got a few issues with the 'sleeping over' part," she traced a finger along the back of their entwined hands, "that's worked out pretty well. And I think I just solved a case without having to get my heartrate up. Poor Barton, though," she added reflectively, "I'm pretty sure he wanted an excuse to go back to Nevada. The man loves the Vegas lights."

"He'll get over it," Bruce assured her.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This isn't precisely how I wanted the story to end up, but I have too many unsupportable ideas and don't want this turning into _Natasha Romanov's War and Peace_. So: thanks so much for reading! Big, big thanks to everyone who offered notes and encouragement and kudos along the way.


End file.
